Nirbhaya Case: March 3 Hanging on Track as SC Junks Curative Plea of Pawan Gupta

On the night of December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally raped by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the curative plea of one of the four death row convicts, Pawan Kumar Gupta, in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, a day before their scheduled hanging. The curative petition was heard in the chamber of Justice Ramana by senior judges Arun Mishra, R F Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

Prior to the hearing, Asha Devi, mother of Nirbhaya had exuded confidence in the Indian judiciary. She had said,”Today their petition is expected to be rejected in the Supreme Court. The case is been going on for quite some time, since 2014, either through SLP (Special Leave Petition), or curative petition or in the form of a review petition. The case is as clear as mirror. Patiala Court is also hearing the case. The death warrant is of tomorrow. Expecting that the death warrant shouldn’t be postponed and they are hanged tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Gupta, in his curative petition had urged the top court to change his death sentence to life imprisonment. He had claimed that his age on the day of offence was 16 years and two months as per the school records last attended by him and the age has not been determined in accordance with the procedures laid down under the Juvenile Justice Act.

The fourth curative petition was filed after a fresh death warrant was issued for the four convicts — Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh, which orders their hanging at 6 AM on March 3 at Delhi’s Tihar Jail.